


The Last Greenseer (And all the problems he creates)

by KINGBRANTHEGOAT



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: The Dance of the Dragons | Aegon II Targaryen v. Rhaenyra Targaryen Era
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-11
Updated: 2021-03-10
Packaged: 2021-03-17 19:27:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29971182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KINGBRANTHEGOAT/pseuds/KINGBRANTHEGOAT
Summary: Bran is a sweet boy, quick to laugh, easy to love. That's why when he goes back in time, everything promptly goes to shit.TLDR: Bran Stark travels back in time intent on saving his family. He misses his destination by about 200 years and ends up in the reign of King Jaeharys I. He tries to live his dream of being a true knight and ends up causing an absolute shit load of problems for everybody. The story takes place from around 80 AC - 131AC, though that is subject to change.
Relationships: Alysanne Targaryen/Jaehaerys I Targaryen, Viserra Targaryen/Bran Stark
Comments: 9
Kudos: 8





	The Last Greenseer (And all the problems he creates)

“Hold the Door! HOLDTHEDOOR! HOLDDOOR! HODOR!”

The words began to blend together, echoing in his mind in past and present through the trees and between his ears. Awkwardly he was shoved back into his body, gasping for breath. _What had he done? What was going on?_

He had no time to think, no time consider as in front of him a dozen men were charging. Their eyes blue as frost, their corpses cold and black. _Wights._ He did not let them get closer, reaching out with his third eye he took their bodies from the Walkers that held them and sent them back against the Others.

He reached out further and deeper sending giants and beasts back as well, clearing a path that Meera could run through. Behind him he could hear Hodor screaming “HODOR!” with more force and determination than he’d ever heard from the gentle giant. Summer was ripping corpses with a savage ferocity that Bran admired, moving from one to another with scarce a moment to breathe.

Neither Meera nor the last of the Children were idle either, both pulling his sled and unleashing fire and arrows upon their foes. Yet it was not enough, Bran could only take his enemies' skins back one at a time, the Others’ had thousands within the forest and neither Meera’s arrows nor the Children’s fires could stop them.

He forced himself to dive back into the trees, and sang as he’d been taught, in the true tongue. He sang the songs of the earth that had not been sung since the days of the dawn, the songs he had learned from the old singers in the old trees. The trees came alive, branches reaching out like great big arms, flailing and swinging about, battering men and giants and beast all into nothingness.

For a moment, it looked as if it had worked, that they might prevail. And then the cold came. White mist and frost began to pervade the clearing, and with it cold so profound he felt he would never feel warm again.

The trees froze first, swinging slower and slower as the permafrost crept up their roots until they stood frozen and unmoving. Summer howled and charged into the icy darkness taking hold, and before Bran could jump into him or call him back, he died, impaled by the spear of an Other, its beautiful blade wet with his blood. Bran felt tears in his eyes as he died, his oldest friend, his faithful companion, gone in an instant.

His sled stopped then, and the Children unsheathed dragonglass weapons, their alien eyes unblinking. Meera joined them, thrusting her spear into a ready position, all willing to die to prevent the Other from reaching Bran. But the Other was not alone, soon a dozen Other’s emerged from the gloom that had settled over the forest, and then a dozen more, and then the whole forest was full of beautiful pale beings with haunting blue eyes, each wielding a sword of crystalline ice.

They did not charge right away, speaking instead with one another, in the language of their people, Skroth. Bran could not understand the words but picked them up in context. They were discussing who would get the honor of killing him. He swallowed hard.

He didn’t want to die. _It wasn’t fair._ He’d barely had a chance to live. He’d had his dreams broken once already with his legs, but he’d fought on, like the heroes in the stories did. He’d learned to hold his head high and find new purpose, new strength, new reason to live. He’d lost his family and everyone he’d ever loved, and still, he’d fought on, holding them dear to his heart promising to avenge them and honor what they taught him, while finding new friends and new people to love. He’d done everything a true knight would do. _And for what?_

All for nothing. He’d die here today, unable to help anyone, unable to do anything, crippled and weak. He wanted to scream, to rage against the unfairness of it all. _Why him?_ A thousand highborn boys became knights every year all over the 7 kingdoms, that’s all Bran had ever wanted to be, a knight, good and honorable and kind. He didn’t have to be great, a Kingslayer or Kingmaker, just a knight. He’d never wanted Winterfell either, just the family that loved him and he loved in turn.

The Other’s paid no heed to his internal strife, finishing their conversation and beginning to move forward slowly. They were in no rush, they had all the time in the world, and all the numbers needed to ensure they could not lose. The Children did not go easily though, Leif unleashed an arrow of dragonglass at the first Other to step forward, killing him with a foul screech.

Another took his place though, and another took the next one as well, some dodged her arrows, and some died, but eventually, she ran out and had only the spear. Her kin had their spears as well, and each was fast and strong, but so were the Other’s and one by one the last of the Children began to fall.

Bran wished he could help them, that he could fight with them. That he could be a knight just for once, for one moment, he could ride out and take the fight to his foes and save his friends. But he couldn’t, it was like he was inside one of Old Nan’s scary stories that he’d loved so much, but now he was not listening to them, he was living them, and he found they were not half so fun.

Tears ran down his cheeks as Meera fell, and Leif and the others, one at a time. The latest losses in a long history of losses. And soon he would die as well. He wanted... he wanted to see his family again. One last time, until he faded into the trees forever. So, he dove, deep into the trees and he reached back, he saw his father before he died, and further until he saw them all in Winterfell once more.

_“Can a man still be brave when he’s afraid?”_

_“That is the only time a man can be brave.”_

_“Are they ever coming back?"_

_"Yes, Mother will be home soon. Maybe we can ride out to meet her when she comes. Wouldn't that surprise her, to see you ahorse? And afterward, we'll ride north to see the Wall. We won't even tell Jon we're coming, we'll just be there one day, you and me. It will be an adventure."_

It wasn’t fair, it wasn’t right. Bran screamed against the storm, against the Ice and the wind and the rain, against the trees and the roots flying in the wind.

_Every flight begins with a fall._

So, he fell, he dove, like he’d done with Hodor like he’d screamed in the weirwood to his father, but instead of remaining as the tree, he dove out of it. Intent on becoming himself again, the day he’d found Summer, the day everything had changed. _The day he could make everything right._

Pain seared his eyes and his nose as a crow appeared pecking at him. “No. NO!” It croaked at him, pecking and diving at him. It was stronger than any ordinary crow, and when he tried to swat it aside it grew cold and black hands under its wings and began to carry him. It held him firm and began to fly as he fell, backwards and backwards.

Images flashed before his eyes, suddenly he saw himself again, but as a child, two or three, and then Robb’s birth and then Jon’s.

_Promise me Ned._

He struggled against the crow, trying to fly out of its grip, screaming against him, but the years flew by faster and faster now.

_Burn them all!_

_The blood of the dragon gathered in one. Seven eggs to honor the gods._

_The King who bore the sword!_

Years flashed by in moments, and he remembered nothing, and then decades and he knew he had to act. The crow wasn’t helping him, he was hurting him, trying to carry him so far back that he couldn’t make a difference, where any impact he made would be lost to the annals of history. He leapt again, but not down, up, into the crow.

The bird croaked and screamed, and more images flashed before his eyes.

_"The bleeding star bespoke the end. These are the last days when the world shall be broken and remade. A new god shall be born from the ashes and charnel pits."_

The crow screamed as it let him go and they fell together. Bran barely managed to change course before he hit the ground, attempting to rise up and fly back when he felt it. He felt untethered in a way he’d never felt before, with roots twisting around him preparing to tie him down.

He’d died he realized, his body had breathed its last, and the tree was about to claim him. Desperately he avoided the grasping branches, hurling himself down and away until he came upon a boy falling in Winterfell, as he had fallen.

Years later he would look back with sorrow and triumph and say _I should have known._ The boy was not falling so high as he had fallen, the boy’s hair was not red where he had been. But fear made men see strange things, and Bran was terribly afraid, afraid of being trapped as a tree watching the rest of his family die, of a world fallen to darkness, so he settled for a boy that was not he.

The boy did not deserve it, no more than Bran ever did, but Bran took his body all the same. It was not like with Hodor, though, where the gentle giant could be merely set aside while Bran ruled his body. That was how it worked when Bran had a body of his own to return to. Now that he did not, he took it all, and the boy, whoever he had once been, whatever he once dreamed was no more. There was only Bran, with a second chance. 


End file.
